A terrible light
To see you gnashing your round white teeth
against the uneven ivory
to see you across the long wood
with your thrashing toes
scattered across the thrumming cords
and these chords have me bound
still in the silent holding of my sanity
as if to breath now would breach the sanctity
of all that keeps us both secure
with your fingers splayed across the keys
trying them each a hundred times
against the locked doors behind your teeth
and I'll watch them light up again and again
with your pink tongue scraping a signal
in the long half light
and rejected fall on each flat note
the answers scattered in black and white
the hundred hammers at your fingers
slam their way through the thick dusk
to land heavy and bitter upon the brass
ringing bare blasts of dissonance
to scatter through the busy room
that has just the two of us in it
you are not building a thing
but tearing with your heavy handed strikes a hole
into the wall for which the door
you cannot find the key among these keys
and so perhaps the noise whill make you one
will make you whole
So you strike and strike again
battering the echoes with the sound of their own doom
So come down love from the piano
Come down, I'll carry you home
1 comment:
Wow, this poem has one of the best titles. So perfectly summarises the poem. I love all the instrumental allusions as well. It conjured up an image of a slightly deranged man trying to play a really elaborate one-man-band contraption with all the keys attaching to hammers that spread out and strike a whole variety of instruments - drumkit, marimba, piano strings, steel drum, xylophone. Maybe also attached is a trumpet with a split in the mouth piece that connects to a bag pipe and a harmonica as well? Well done
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